Can I see your ID?
Yeah, I think I have it.
Narrator: This might be the most famous fake ID
in any movie --
so famous that someone tried to use it
as a fake ID in real life.
That's why prop makers have to be extra careful
when making fake IDs for movies and TV shows.
Too good, and they could get into legal trouble.
We stopped by The Hand Prop Room in LA,
which made the McLovin ID,
and the studio of graphic props artist Ross MacDonald
to see how Hollywood makes its prop IDs.
When creating fake IDs for production,
agencies might limit their customers to major studios.
It's the prop maker's job
to make these IDs look as real as possible on screen
without crossing into any legal gray areas.
Like with this New Mexico driver's license,
which The Hand Prop Room made for "Black Widow."
The photo of Scarlett Johansson
has been swapped in for a stock photo,
and the hologram, which in real IDs would be 3D,
is actually 2D.
Jacob Kubon: There's a lot of tricks that you can use
in the graphic itself
to make it look like it's catching light
and having some shine to it.
Narrator: For a special close-up,
they might simulate the hologram physically
using a silk screen and iridescent powders
mixed with clear ink.
Luckily, according to graphic props artists Ross MacDonald,
simplifying elements like holograms and shadow images
can make the ID look better on screen,
since it won't be as jammed with tiny details.
Ross: The rule of thumb is
convincing is better than accurate.
Narrator: To nail the aesthetics,
prop makers often focus on the sheen of the ID.
Jacob: A lot of the driver's licenses you see,
especially now, have this kind of matte,
but also a bit of a sheen look.
And that's what we're going to get
from the lamination process.
Narrator: Laminating will also give it
the weight of an actual driver's license,
so that when the actor holds the card,
it not only looks, but feels like the real deal.
For projects that call for close-ups,
they use this old-school embossing machine
to make sure the lighting reflects
off the numbers on the card in the right way.
And for special forms of ID, like those for the US Army,
the prop makers might have to mimic metal chips.
For these, prop artists can make fake chips out of vinyl
to stick on top of the ID,
or they can print it on a card
that already has the fake chip built in.
But specialized IDs pose another problem.
They're often very, very plain.
Military ID cards, police identification,
even the FBI identification,
they're meant to be looked at really close up.
But on a TV screen, they might be sort of holding it up,
and we're looking at them from eight feet away.
Narrator: As a prop artist,
you'd maybe spice things up with a flashy gold badge
or this type of giant FBI logo
you see popping up a lot in shows and movies.
And a lot of times the frame of reference
that viewers have is other shows.
The "X-Files" one is one that you see copied a lot.
Narrator: The ID also needs to play well in the scene.
FBI.
Narrator: Like this 1920s one Ross made
for a Prohibition agent in "Boardwalk Empire."
He first produced an ID
faithful to what agents carried at the time.
But after some rehearsals,
the filmmakers asked him to add space for a badge inside,
so the agents would have something to flash.
Things get tricky when it comes to passports,
which are generally much harder to forge than ID cards
because of all the detail involved across multiple pages.
To make a current US passport,
The Hand Prop Room has to print and trim the pages,
do a clear overlay on the photo page,
and silk-screen the cover to give it that authentic sheen.
After sewing the pages together,
the prop makers assemble the passport and do a final trim.
To avoid legal troubles,
prop houses will sometimes deliberately alter the look,
like on this Netherlands passport for "Madam Secretary."
The show's legal team asked The Hand Prop Room
to make the passport less accurate
by reshuffling the layout and changing the color scheme.
With historical IDs, legality isn't an issue,
so prop artists can get a lot more authentic
on period shows.
That's what Ross did when he made this 1920s passport
for Steve Buscemi's character on "Boardwalk Empire."
Agent: Passport?
Narrator: Ross first had to track down a 1921 passport
to use as a model,
then digitally clear out the existing info
and recreate the background pattern
so that he could go in and write the new material on top.
He had to find the red legal seal in Europe,
since the US doesn't use that kind anymore,
then emboss the seal and photo,
make, print, and perforate the stick-on stamps,
and recreate all the rubber stamps
to match those of the time period.
He was lucky to have an example to work with.
It can be a lot harder to find reference material
for more mundane forms of ID,
like a driver's license from a specific year and state.
Ross: Especially from pre-1980,
there's no reason for anyone to digitize that.
Narrator: For this one, the closest reference
Ross could find was a photo
of a New Jersey license from 1923.
He scanned it and built all this type on top of it
in the computer to recreate a high-res version.
Since this stuff is so hard to find, Ross keeps folders
of all the reference materials he's compiled
through the 100-plus movies he's worked on.
When he's working off a pixelated photo like this one,
the hardest part is recreating
the actual document part of the ID.
Ross has to identify all the typeface,
so he places different fonts over the original text
to find ones that match.
It helps to have a library of antique fonts
used in different time periods.
You can date this particular cutting of this font
to between 1815 and roughly 1825.
Narrator: Sometimes, though, you have to recreate
a whole alphabet.
For this 1960 passport made for an unreleased project,
Jacob scanned six or seven real passports from the era
to capture every letter of the alphabet,
then cleaned up the letters and vectorized them
to make a whole new font
just for this particular year of passports.
His team also had to recreate by hand
the blue-to-red effect of this special '60s stamp.
Replicating the look of old printing tools
takes some creative problem solving.
The Hand Prop Room used printing tricks
on this '67 California license
for Chris Pine's character in "I Am the Night"
to make the text look like it came out of a typewriter.
Whenever possible, it helps to use the real deal.
Ross prints all kinds of seals and typefaces
on his old-school letterpress,
which is operated by a foot pedal.
Then there's the question of what to write.
Ross made these Illinois licenses
for a scene where the police raid a packed speakeasy,
which meant a bunch of background characters
needed to show ID.
So Ross had to make up a bunch of names, addresses,
exact heights, weights, and more.
After about the 10th one, you're like,
did I use John Smith already?
Narrator: Ross will often refer to period yearbooks
for names that sound old-school.
Ross: This guy's Aloysius Sawicki.
Narrator: And for main characters,
all this info needs to be confirmed with production.
These are passport instructions
for Owen Sleater in "Boardwalk Empire,"
providing details like the character's
full name and hair color
but leaving out other pertinent information.
A lot of other documentation
requires things like birth dates.
You know, the writers have never even considered
how old the character is or what his birthday is.
Narrator: At the end of the day, though,
graphic prop artists like Ross and Jacob
don't always know how the prop will be used
when they're creating it.
Sometimes these props are highlighted in the action,
but sometimes you're doing a lot of research and work
for an ID that may only be flashed on screen
for a split second.
Ross: So, incredibly elaborate prop,
which we see in the episode like this.
He just hands it across the counter.
There were no pictures of the criminals
on wanted posters in the 19th century.
It's something that comes from the movies.
Most people didn't have photographs of themselves.